Efficient delivery of meteorites to the Earth from a wide range of asteroid parent bodies

D. Vokrouhlický () and P. Farinella
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D. Vokrouhlický: Institute of Astronomy, Charles University
P. Farinella: Università da Trieste

Nature, 2000, vol. 407, issue 6804, 606-608

Abstract: Abstract Almost all meteorites come from asteroids, but identifying their specific parent bodies, and modelling their transport to the Earth, has proved to be difficult1,2. The usual model1,3,4 of delivery through orbital resonances with the major planets5,6 has recently been shown7,8,9,10 to deplete the supply of meteorites much too rapidly to explain either the observed flux at the Earth, or the length of time the meteorites have spent in space (as measured by cosmic-ray exposure ages). Independently, it has been found that a force arising from anisotropically emitted thermal radiation from asteroidal fragments (the ‘Yarkovsky effect’) influences the fragments' orbits in important ways11,12,13,14. Here we report the results of a detailed model for the transport of meteorites to the Earth, which includes the Yarkovsky effect and collisional evolution of the asteroidal fragments. We find that the Yarkovsky effect significantly increases the efficiency of the delivery of meteorites to the Earth, while at the same time allowing a much wider range of asteroids to contribute to the flux of meteorites. Our model also reproduces the observed distribution15,16 of cosmic-ray exposure ages of stony meteorites.

Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1038/35036528

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